Easier Masqueraded Than Done
by Old English Game
Summary: Kinch shook his head, "Carter, if we go in there, they'll kill us!" "Well, they're going to kill them if we don't hurry!"
1. Chapter 1

Another gust of wind slammed against the barracks door, sweeping underneath and blowing the dust along the floor in eerie patterns.

Carter was sitting right up against the furnace, not minding that the back of his neck was a little hot, watching the dirt blow over his sock feet. It was nearly one in the morning, and he couldn't sleep, because Hogan, Newkirk, and LeBeau were on a mission – they'd gone to Gestapo headquarters to get a captured underground agent. Carter had used to think he would rather stay at camp and wait in safety, but he kind of got now why Kinch didn't mind as much as the rest when he had to come out to blow a bridge or something. He could watch everyone else then, make sure they weren't hurt. It didn't really matter because if something went wrong, they'd all be dead anyways.

Kinch, sitting at the table, shuffled the deck of cards again, running his fingers over the soft edges. There were little notches in the sides that he hadn't noticed before. That was more than likely how Newkirk cheated.

"It's snowing," He heard Carter murmur, and he looked down to see a fine white powder blow under the door into the barracks, only to disappear as it got too close to the fire.

"Mmmhmm," He said, glancing at the tunnel entrance in the bunk. The guys weren't due back for half an hour, but a lot could happen in half an hour. Especially in Germany – anything from getting caught to it snowing two feet, or both, and none of it was very good.

"I remember when it snowed back in Bullfrog," Carter said. "It would be really cold, and then all of a sudden you'd wake up and there'd be three, four feet of snow on the ground. I never really got why Mom and Dad hated it so much until I turned ten and had to help with chores." He sighed, staring between the table legs at the bunk. "Now I hate it even more. When I get back home I'm moving to Miami."  
Kinch grinned. He enjoyed having someone to wait up with him, and Carter was pretty good at easing the tension in the room. "What're you gonna do there?"

"I'll get married, for one thing," Carter said, frowning at the gold band on his finger. It was his dad's, old and nicked up, but it fit nice and it felt right. "I kinda like Madie." He remembered the blonde girl who worked at the Hofbrau. She didn't like Nazi Germany either, but Carter didn't want her involved in the underground. "And I'm gonna take my test and open a drugstore."

"Sounds good," Kinch said, smiling at his certainty. Well, he suspected he was right about Madie.

Carter looked up at his friend. "What're you gonna do?"

"Oh." Kinch frowned. "I guess I'll meet Yowanda in Toledo, like I promised. Maybe I'll be a mechanic or something."

"That's a good idea," Carter conceded. "You can live next door to me, in Miami, if you like."

"Thanks."

"You know, we should all live next to each other," Carter said thoughtfully. "WE could have our very own cul-de-sac. All of us and even Olsen and Wilson and Thomas and the others."

"It's pretty hard to fit 250 men and their families into one cul-de-sac, Andrew." Kinch shook his head.

"A whole neighborhood? No, wait! We make our own town, out in the countryside. We could call it - what do we call it?" Carter frowned.

Going along with the idea, Kinch suggested, "Well, let's not call it Stalag 13. I guess since we're under the command of Colonel Hogan, we could call it..." He trailed off. "Papa Bear's Den?"

"Kinch!" Carter gasped. "That's a terrible name!"

"So is the idea!" Kinch countered. "We've all been crammed within two feet of each other for the past - it's been almost a year now!"

"I've only been here six months," Carter said pointedly.

"Right, and LeBeau and Newkirk have been here since 1939," Kinch said. "As soon as we reach the States, everyone's going to scatter. We'll be lucky to get Christmas cards from some of these guys."

"You'll get a Christmas card from me," Carter vowed. "Always,"

Kinch sighed and shook his head. "Thanks." He looked at his watch and frowned. "The boys are due back now. I'm going to head below."

"I'll come with," Carter said.

Kinch opened the tunnel as quietly as he could, received a mumbled protest from somebody in the room, and as they went below he sighed, "I have an odd feeling about tonight, Carter."

Carter nodded solemnly. "Yeah. Me too. Like that feeling you get when you're in seventh grade and you have to go out and recite 'Let America Be America Again' to everyone in the audience, which consists of the entire school and their parents and grandparents and the teachers, and you really don't want to because you just know you're going to throw up all over the stage?"

Kinch raised an eyebrow at him. "That's a very specific scenario. But yes. Only it's the feeling when your fiancee is about to introduce you to her family for the first time, and you know they're going to hate you because you're black and they're rich white people and heaven forbid -" He threw up his hands.

Carter stared. "Aww, Kinch."

He shook his head and frowned. "I'm over it. She's happy now. Look, if they're not back in a half hour - or whenever we're tired of sitting on our hands - we're sneaking to Gestapo headquarters to be sure they haven't been hauled there."

"Okay."

Twenty minutes later, Kinch gave up on Solitaire and swept his cards into a pile. "Let's go. Let's stay in uniform, in case we get caught. Grab the guns." He shoved the cards back into the deck and left them on the table. "Let me write a note in case we're not back." He grabbed a pad of paper. "Should we say if we're not back by one the guys should report us missing?"

Carter nodded. "Sounds good."

Kinch quickly scrawled the notice on the paper, left it in plain sight on the radio table, and followed Carter out of the tunnel.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't horribly cold out, Kinch thought, just before a great gust of wind hit him in the face and nearly blew him back into the tunnel. Several times as they ventured through the forest Carter stumbled back into him and the both of them nearly went crashing. Eventually, though, they made it to the pull-off where the motorpool sergeant left the car for them, and walked along just inside the treeline.

"We should have met them coming back by now," Kinch sighed.

Carter just nodded.

Soon they came to town, and ducked into the back alley. Tactfully avoiding the gazes of the many homeless that populated the abandoned dumpsters and homes made of pieces of broken things, they got as close as they dared to the Gestapo Headquarters.

"You stay hidden," Carter murmured. "I'm going to see if I can hear them in there,"

Kinch nodded and shrank back into the shadow of a dumpster, eyes trained carefully on the surroundings as Carter, crouched low, crept to the back, and cocked his head to hear what was coming from the above window.

From the sudden expression of horror on his face, Kinch knew it wasn't good.

He scrambled back and exclaimed, "Kinch! We've got to get in there, now! They caught 'em and they're planning to start interrogation like, right now, and Kinch it's not going to be good! Come on!"

Kinch shook his head. "Carter, if we go in there, they'll kill us!"

"Well, they're going to kill them if we don't hurry!" Carter realized his voice was heightening and dropped his volume. "Okay. No, I got it. I'm going to go in there and tell them I'm a Gestapo agent. I look German enough, don't I?"

"In disguise as an Allied flyer," Kinch said skeptically. "That's worse than all of us creating a town in the countryside!"

"No. I throw my weight around. Tell him it's imperative that they release their prisoners immediately for - for interrogation by Berlin operatives."

"If they say no?"

Carter frowned. "I need something to fall back on, dammit!"

Kinch grabbed his arm. "Tell them they're connected to Nimrod."

"Nimrod?!"

"Keep your voice down," He hissed. "Nimrod. And you tell them not to tell anybody what went on. Not even his superiors."

"Especially not his superiors." Carter drew a deep breath. "Okay. I'm going." He turned around, and then glanced back. "Kinch, if it goes wrong, you can't come after me. You gotta get back to evacuate the camp."

Kinch nodded solemnly. "Go ahead, buddy. And if you go, take as many krauts as you can with you."

Carter smiled wryly, and then turned back to the alley. He squared his shoulders and strode away.

"What is the meaning of this!?" He demanded, his voice rising several decibels, slamming his hand down on the secretary's desk. He jumped back ten feet. Oh, thank God. "I have been in deep cover for four months! Four months! And you arrested my most important contacts!"

"Who - who are you?" The secretary whimpered, eyes darting over Carter's uniform.

"You think that is any of your business?" He hollered. "No! Neither are those men! I demand that you have them release at once! Or else you will have the entire Third Reich on your head!" He felt his scream grate on his throat and dropped his tone to a low growl, leaning into the secretary's face. "The Führer will personally paint the walls with what little brains you have."

He paled significantly. "Sir - how do I know who you are?" He eked out. "Do you have papers?"

"Do I HAVE PAPERS?" His voice cracked at the end and Carter swallowed hard before going on, "Do you think I carry incriminating papers with me? These men trust me, private!"

"C-corporal -,"

"Don't count on it!" He screamed. "Get me those prisoners at once! Now that you have blown our cover we must begin interrogations immediately!"

"Ja - jawohl." He scrambled up and fairly ran to the door in the corner of the room. "If you - come with me, please."

Carter put on his best stewing angry expression and followed him down a long flight of stairs. The temperature dropped steadily as they went, and then walked down a long hallway until he stopped in front of one door. The keys shook in his hand.

When it swung open the people in the room automatically recoiled, except for Colonel Hogan, dressed in all the glory of a Gestapo Colonel, who stepped in front of his men with a gleaming hatred in his eyes. His jaw dropped when he saw Carter, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Come," Carter snapped, jerking his head.

One by one they filed out, Newkirk and LeBeau failing to hide their shock. Luckily, it lined up perfectly with Carter's story.

The secretary put a hand out to stop the last man, a younger blond who must have been the agent who had been captured.

"Nein!" Carter demanded. "Him too."

"Jawohl, Herr - herr," The secretary faltered. "Will you require transportation?"

Oh. Right. "Nein." Carter pulled out his gun and leveled it at Colonel Hogan. "They will give me no trouble." He smiled maliciously, and then turned to the secretary. "Now, corporal, I am feeling lenient today. Absolutely nobody may find out about his."

"But - the reports?"

Carter gripped his gun tighter and the secretary's wide eyes travelled to it. He nodded.

"Good!" Carter exclaimed, and then waved his gun at the others. "You do as I say, or I will put a bullet through your heads. If I'm feeling kind." He added.

They had the grace to look terrified as Carter paraded them out of Gestapo headquarters.

"The alley," He whispered, all of his hellfire gone in place of a mousy squeak.

They ducked into the alley and as soon as they were out of sight Kinch came from behind the dumpster.

"Blimey!" Newkirk grinned. "Andrew, you were brilliant!"

"You didn't even see half the show," Carter mumbled, and then his legs gave out from under him.

The underground agent caught him and looked at the others with an expression of pure shock on his face.

"He's one of us," Hogan explained nonchalantly. "Alright, Kinch, give him your shoulder. I think he's earned it."

Kinch draped one of Carter's arms over his shoulder and Hogan took the other side.

"I can't believe I just did that," Carter murmured hoarsely.

"André, after this, I just might have to make you one of your disgusting hot dogs," LeBeau said. "Let's get back, I've had enough for the night."

"Didn't even have to use the Nimrod excuse." Carter grinned lopsidedly at Kinch as they started to drag him down the alley.

"I heard you screaming your head off. Your throat feeling okay?" Kinch asked.

"It's on fire. I'm going to shut up now."

"Thank the Lord."

"Newkirk!"

* * *

"I think you did okay, you know," Carter said around his mouthful of sort-of-hot-dog.

LeBeau, who had vowed to never make a hot dog in his life and couldn't break that promise, had compromised with a sort of meat-veggie-wrap.

"I'm glad you like it." LeBeau nodded his agreement. "It was fun to make. But." He gave Carter a look. "If you dare say it needs more ketchup, I will shove it down your throat and watch you choke."

Carter swallowed hard. "Got it."

Just then the barracks door open and Colonel Hogan strode in, grinning broadly about - something. From the faint pinkish smudges on his cheek, that something wasn't hard to guess.

"What'd Klink have to say?" Kinch asked.

"Well, Major Hochstetter is fuming about the escape of his prisoner." Hogan grinned. "But nobody has any idea where he's gone."

Carter sighed, relieved. "I was worried that corporal might actually tell on us," He admitted.

"With that bawling you gave him?" Newkirk shook his head. "No way."

"And," Hogan sat down. "Just last night an important offensive planned against England was completely destroyed when the leaders of the offensive mysteriously disappeared." He shook his head. "Such a pity."

Newkirk grinned. "I feel positively rotten."

"It feels really good." Carter said, and then took another bit of the not-a-hot-dog.

"London radioed when you were gone, Colonel," Kinch said. "The agent and his prisoners made it safely."

"Alright." Hogan swiped a fallen tomato slice off of Carter's plate. "Mission accomplished."

"And -" Kinch added.

They sighed. "There's alway an 'and'," Hogan sighed. "Either an 'and' or a 'but'."

"They have another target for us to blow up," Kinch went on. "By the end of the week they want the bridge north of Hammelburg gone. I guess it's back to the grind."

"Were we ever off the grind?" Hogan shook his head. "All right, gather 'round. We'll need some bombs..."


End file.
